What you need to know

U.S. eyes direct strikes inside Colombia as hemispheric doctrine hardens

The Trump administration is now openly discussing joint military strikes inside Colombia against guerrilla and criminal groups, a move that would push Washington's use of force in Latin America well beyond maritime drug interdiction. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed on August 12 in Panama that he had discussed joint strikes with Colombia's new defense minister targeting the National Liberation Army (ELN) and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) remnants.

No operation has been authorized, but Hegseth said any U.S.-designated terrorist group operating in a cooperative host country could become a legitimate American military target. That framing extends well past Colombia.

Bogotá signs on

Colombia formally joined the U.S.-led Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition, known as Shield of the Americas, during Hegseth's visit. New Colombian President Abelardo De La Espriella, who took office last week, is reversing predecessor Gustavo Petro's approach, and Colombia's defense minister, retired Maj. Gen. Jorge Eduardo Mora, wants a central role targeting trafficking on both coasts.

Doctrine, not just deployment

Officials increasingly call this the "Donroe Doctrine," a Trump-era reworking of the Monroe Doctrine stressing U.S. primacy and tighter military ties with aligned governments. Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby said in July that joint counter-narcotics strikes with partner governments are already underway in Ecuador. Hegseth invoked the same framing in Panama and compared major drug cartels to al-Qaeda and Islamic State, collapsing the line between counter-narcotics work and counterterrorism.

Why it matters

Overt U.S. strikes inside Colombia would raise sovereignty, civilian casualty, and law-enforcement-versus-warfare questions, and would set a precedent usable against other designated groups elsewhere in the region. The pattern, strikes on suspected traffickers, joint operations in Ecuador, coalition expansion, and now Colombia talks, points toward a hemispheric counterterrorism doctrine rather than a one-off policy.

What to watch

Southern Command's coalition campaign plan, due in November, will likely clarify operational scope. Watch for the first confirmed U.S. strike inside Colombian territory, which would formalize the shift from advisory support to direct combat involvement, and for how other regional governments facing armed groups respond to the precedent.

Birthplace of civilization

Islamabad's ‘truce’ clock runs out, but Washington and Tehran may buy time

Pakistan says the U.S. and Iran have agreed in principle to extend the 60-day negotiating window under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, which was set to expire on August 17. Iran disputes that any extension has been agreed, leaving the reported deal unconfirmed and the deadline's status murky just days before it lapses.

A Pakistani source close to the mediation told Turkey's Anadolu Agency on Wednesday that both sides had conveyed consent to mediators to extend the deadline, though Washington and Tehran are still messaging through intermediaries over how long an extension should run.

Talks have already collapsed once

The two countries agreed to a Pakistan-brokered halt to hostilities in April, then signed the Islamabad Memorandum on June 17, starting a 60-day clock for a broader settlement. Those talks broke down over implementation of U.S. commitments and the future status of the Strait of Hormuz.

Hormuz sticking point

Iran wants sanctions relief, release of frozen assets, an end to U.S. military operations, and compensation for war damage before restoring normal passage through the strait. Washington wants freedom of navigation through the corridor preserved. Commercial shipping traffic remains well below pre-war levels.

Conflicting signals from Tehran

A senior Iranian official said Wednesday that Tehran and Washington had not discussed extending the deadline and that there had been no progress reviving the interim agreement. Iran instead wants the U.S. to return to the June framework and set a timetable for the commitments Tehran says Washington failed to honor.

Implications

The gap between Pakistan's account and Iran's denial suggests Islamabad may have secured only informal assurances that talks can continue past August 17, without locked-in terms. Even that limited understanding would lower the immediate risk that the deadline's expiry triggers another major round of U.S.-Iran fighting, but a formal extension announcement, or its absence, in the next few days will be the clearest indicator of where this heads.

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Stray drones hit Iraqi Kurdistan as Iran targets exiled opposition

Four drones crashed across separate locations in Iraq's Kurdistan Region early Wednesday, August 12, damaging a civilian home and sparking a vegetation fire, though no casualties were reported. The crashes coincided with a fresh round of Iranian missile and drone strikes on Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in the region, though the drones' origin and intended targets remain officially unconfirmed.

Four separate impact sites

The drones came down in the Soran Independent Administration, Khalifan district, and Hareer subdistrict, all northeast of Erbil.

Iran's strikes on Kurdish opposition continue

The drone crashes occurred alongside renewed Iranian attacks on Iranian Kurdish opposition positions in the Alana Valley, roughly 90 kilometers (56 miles) northeast of Erbil. A Kurdish security official told Rudaw that two drones struck the Alana Valley area Wednesday without causing casualties.

Why it matters

Tehran accuses Iranian Kurdish opposition groups operating from Iraqi territory of threatening Iranian security, and has repeatedly struck their positions during the broader U.S.-Iran confrontation. The Kurdistan Regional Government maintains it is not a party to the conflict and has called for strikes on its territory to stop, but Wednesday's stray impacts show civilian areas remain at risk even when strikes target military or political sites.

The expanding use of drones whose targeting appears imprecise is raising the odds of civilian harm in northern Iraq regardless of intent. Continued Iranian strikes on Komala and KDPI positions, paired with unexplained drone crashes in populated areas, will keep pressure on Erbil to seek stronger guarantees from Tehran or Washington that its territory won't become a recurring battleground.

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Houthis renew missile attacks on Yemen’s Mokha port amid wider escalation

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement renewed its attacks on the strategic Red Sea port of Mokha on Wednesday, 12 August, firing two ballistic missiles at the facility as fighting intensifies across western Yemen and the Bab al-Mandab region.

A Yemeni military source said both missiles struck the port’s quay. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear, and authorities were carrying out an assessment. Reports from the city also described intense aircraft activity following several days of missile and drone attacks against the port and nearby residential areas.

The latest strikes follow a considerably larger Houthi assault on Mokha on 9 August, in which seven people, including four members of the armed forces and three civilians, were killed and 30 wounded. The Yemeni military said air defenses shot down 11 Houthi drones during that attack and accused the group of striking residential neighborhoods. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the operation had targeted Saudi troop concentrations and weapons depots.

Mokha has become an increasingly important front in the renewed conflict because of its position close to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the principal maritime gateways connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. The escalation has also spread into surrounding shipping lanes. On Tuesday, Houthi forces attacked the Egyptian-owned cargo ship Tihamah in the Bab al-Mandab, killing four crew members. Two Yemeni rescuers were subsequently killed when the Houthis struck again after rescue teams arrived, according to Yemeni authorities.

The attacks form part of the sharpest deterioration in Yemen’s security environment in years, threatening the relative military calm that had largely prevailed since the 2022 truce. Shipping through the Bab al-Mandab and Red Sea has already fallen sharply, while the Houthis declared what they described as a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia on 20 July.

Yemen’s internationally recognized government is now considering its response. Prime Minister Shaya Zindani chaired a cabinet meeting in the interim capital Aden on Tuesday to assess the security, economic and humanitarian consequences of the Houthi escalation and discuss measures to counter it.

The renewed attacks on Mokha suggest that the confrontation is increasingly shifting from isolated exchanges toward a broader campaign against government-held infrastructure, maritime traffic and positions along Yemen’s western coast, raising the risk that the country could slide back into sustained large-scale fighting.

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Caracas pivots away from Tehran as Israel ties thaw

Venezuela and Israel have agreed to restore consular services after a 17-year rupture, the most significant formal step between the two countries since Hugo Chávez cut relations in 2009 during the Gaza war. The August 11 agreement stops short of full diplomatic relations, but its political weight far outstrips its practical scope, marking another sign that Caracas is drifting from Tehran and toward Washington.

A realignment already underway

Under interim President Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela has been repositioning since the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro in January. Caracas has restored relations with Washington, opened parts of its oil and mining sectors to U.S. investment, and grown visibly more distant from Iran, once one of its closest strategic partners.

Earthquake diplomacy opened the door

The opening to Israel came through an unlikely channel. After earthquakes struck Venezuela on June 24, Israel sent a humanitarian and search-and-rescue team that stayed roughly three weeks, assessing damaged buildings and working with local officials on reconstruction.

Tehran's foothold erodes

Iran spent two decades under Chávez and Maduro building Venezuela into its principal strategic foothold in Latin America, developing energy, industrial, defense, and diplomatic cooperation around a shared anti-U.S. platform. The Israel rapprochement does not dismantle that network and does not guarantee a full break with Tehran.

What to watch

Taken together with Venezuela's outreach to Washington and its public friction with Iran, the Israel opening suggests a key piece of Tehran's regional architecture is starting to come apart. Watch whether Caracas moves beyond consular services toward full diplomatic normalization with Israel, and whether Iran responds with further public friction or moves to shore up its remaining footholds elsewhere in Latin America.

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Lebanon's first amnesty since the civil war reopens old fault lines

Lebanon's parliament passed a sweeping general amnesty law on Wednesday, August 12, its first since 1991, potentially freeing or reducing sentences for thousands of prisoners, detainees, and wanted people. The measure passed by show of hands in the 128-member parliament, but Hezbollah, the Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), and former FPM lawmakers Ibrahim Kanaan and Simon Abi Ramia walked out beforehand.

A deal that splits along sectarian lines

The walkout followed a dispute over Prime Minister Nawaf Salam's refusal to let Defense Minister Michel Menassa brief parliament on the Lebanese Army's objections. The army is concerned people convicted over attacks on soldiers could benefit, and families of soldiers killed by Islamist militants strongly oppose the law.

What the law does and doesn't cover

The law reduces a range of sentences and allows release of some convicted militants and drug offenders. It excludes rape, human trafficking, corruption, terrorism financing, premeditated murder, repeat drug offenses, and collaboration with Israel.

The Assir case shows the law's reach

Parliament abolished the death penalty on Tuesday, immediately before passing the amnesty, a sequencing that matters most for Sunni cleric Ahmad al-Assir, sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 Abra clashes that killed 18 Lebanese soldiers. A parliamentary source told L'Orient Today the combined effect of the two laws could shrink Assir's effective sentence enough for release in April 2028.

Critics argue the amnesty trades justice for political compromise without fixing the institutions, courts, prisons, and sectarian patronage networks, that produced the underlying grievances. Watch whether the army's objections resurface as specific releases occur, and whether Hezbollah and the FPM extract concessions before fully re-engaging in parliament.

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